14 October 2012

Caos

Caos Musique is an Italo-French collaboration. Angelo Oliveri leads from trumpet with trombone, electronics and drums. Firstly, I luxuriate in satisfying tone and a melodic ear and obvious harmonic skills as Angelo runs solos and toys with sequences with gentle persistence.
Next I am thrilled by French trombonist, Yves Robert, with his screeds of notes and supple tonguing and tones and flexible pitch. Yves is all sixteenths notes and ridiculously fluent slithering melody and yet is also delightful and decisive in counterpoint when called for. This is a lovely, purposeful although diverse pair. I didn’t click so easily with the others. I found the electronics harsh and intrusive next to the beauty of acoustic instruments well played. I wonder if the balance is right. Shouldn’t these processed tones be just recognisable (that’s how I do reverb in recordings) but they blare at times, then are absent at others. Then I hear a ballad that uses electronica effectively and I’m more comfortable, but it’s just that tune. The drums, too, are somewhat at disjunction from the two brass instruments, with a heavy tone and flowery presentation with lots of feints and otherwise an ornery urgency that seems out of place. I’m wondering if maybe my journey in music is to the past, to a love of acoustic tone and harmonic knowledge and instrumental skill - to the building blocks – but I’m not sure that’s true. I enjoy this band for the twin brass that’s so diverse in style yet so capriciously communicative, but I wonder if the drums, as essential as they are, and the electronics add much to my ears. Caos Musique are Angelo Olivieri (trumpet), ECM recording artist Yves Robert (trombone), Antonio Pulli (electronics) and Marco Ariano (drums).

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